I'm hoping there's already a thread on the SAHM writing about CB cuts in Saturday's Grauniad (money section), but in case there isn't...

[kveta]

please someone come and talk about it here! this one

DH and I were both spluttering all the way through this, and found our hearts didn't bleed too much.

Did anyone else read it and weep?

Yes, I read it. Not sure what she was complaining about. I do all of the things she talked about as money saving anyway.

Articles like this really cheapen the Guardian imo.

The Guardian has picked some spectacularly bad examples of people who are complaining about the cuts. SAHMs who live in divine, expensive Cambridge rather than slightly less desirable but much cheaper Ipswitch. And last week they had a story about some woman who would no longer be able to afford her Victorian flat in Queens Park once benifits were capped at 26k.

Call me harsh but I won't be crying any rivers for those two.

I know, it makes me squirm a little bit.

I just loved the whinges about a) having to lose the cleaner twice a week (she's a SAHM FFS - I work P/T but 5 days a week, and have at least 2 afternoons where I have to work from home on conference calls, but we can't justify a cleaner!) and not shop online at Ocado. wow. Someone on the Grauniad website said it was a great piece of satire :o

that bit I got actually - have a friend who is married to a trainee consultant (can't recall speciality) and they are moving to Cambs because it's between the 3 different training hospitals he'll be in - ipswich, Addenbrookes, and one other (in bedfordshire I think).

so the commute to ipswich makes sense.

but the whinging about not being able to buy paperbacks in the book shop (erm , library?) and having to choose between dance classes for her 5 year old - words did fail me, briefly.

"Ballet will stay" ffs.

pmsl break out the worlds smallest violin!

It embarrassed me a bit. DH is just into the higher rate tax and I am currently a SAHM, but I don't recognise her life. We certainly don't feel hard up but then we have one car and my children don't do any dance classes .

We live the other side of Ipswich and my dh commutes to Cambridge ,ghastley commute but there is no way we could have afforded to move to Cambridge and maintain our current lifestyle(not especially luxurious!!).

as a doctor the commute would be too much because you are usually required I think to live within a certain distance of hospital,seems very odd to me.

the lady mentioned she found it easy to scrap school dinners at £10 a week.

She is probably right that it is cheaper to do packed lunches than pay for school dinners and maybe 100s more people will make this switch when they lose child benefit.

The thing is if we all did this the dinner ladies would be unemployed and schools would cease to offer hot lunches, so choice would be lost for all.

That article really annoyed me,it really gave the wrong impression on how loosing CB will effect people.

We will be loosing our CB and are already feeding 5 of us on £80 a week at Lidl and Asda.

Dp cycles 13 miles each way and we have 1 very old battered car.

My dc have never done any activities other than swimming which my parents pay for.

Never had a cleaner,always used the library.

Dcs rarely have school dinners etc.

We camp in Cornwall for a holiday.

Counting every penny,really going to feel the cuts.

This is the reality for many parents loosing CB not the lifestyle portrayed in the article

I get where she is coming from - you think that as you earn good money that you should have more choices than you actually have..
I am middle class though not wealthy, have never been poor and have no idea how I would survive on benefits.

However, I did think her whining was tasteless and certainly should not have been given space in my favourite newspaper.

I thought it must be satire. There are so many people whose stories would elicit sympathy, and yet instead they have one who thinks that "only" having a week in Cornwall means abandoning any idea of a holiday.

So full of middle class pseudo poverty cliches (dropping the jazz class, sacking the cleaner, giving up the Ocado order), it had to be tongue in cheek. Surely?

i thought so too fennel.

Daft mare. Probably means Guardian Family section commissioning ed doesn't know anyone who WILL really be affected. Which is a bit rubbish.

But I do think it's a bit rough on SAHM - CB was the only official recognition that their labour had any value at all.

It wasn't by her: it was by a hack who once stitched me up when I ran a press office (not obviously that this is relevant but I thought I would throw this festering resentment in, it's only been ooh 15 years) - she's clearly a friend of said hack (see above) or a friend of a friend. Lazy case-study trawl, frankly.

No bleeding heart either. Running two cars - but got her shopping delivered? SAHM but had a cleaner? Managed to shave 400 a month just from making a few cuts which really were major luxuries... What car are you driving that using it for pottering around you're able to SAVE 36 a month alone on insurance!?

As for their location - I'm torn about this one. Yes, quite clearly she could've moved to a cheaper area - however I'm led to believe that her husband's training will be done at several locations over the period of his training so it's not quite as cut & dry as "buy here".

Furthermore, she aims to return to employment by 2013 - thereby negating her whinging about the removal of CB. Also, one would expect her husband to be on a significantly larger wage by then!

I've half a mind to write a letter to the grauniad about it - congratulating them on such an amusing article, and suggesting that they get someone who is actually struggling to write one for them next week.

(I by contrast am finding Real People for a different Guardian Family piece at the moment...)

How can anyone afford to buy 2 cars on 45k let alone run them?

I read this with my jaw dropping so far it was almost at my knees by the end. It's like there's a parallel universe out there.